Neuroendocrinology News

The combination of capecitabine plus temozolomide demonstrated efficacy in patients with well- to moderately differentiated neuroendocrine tumors resistant to octreotide, according to phase 2 study results presented at the 2014 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.

The etiology of pituitary adenoma growth rate is multifactorial and may be influenced by patient age and gender, as well as adenoma subtype, hormonal activity, immunohistological profile and the direction of growth relative to the pituitary fossa, according to results of a retrospective study.

Jorn Woerdeman, MD, of the department of internal medicine at VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam, and colleagues examined 33 patients with diabetes and proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR+), 34 patients with diabetes but without retinopathy (PDR–) and 33 controls who underwent MRI to assess cerebral microangiopathy and ischemic damage.

There is a lack of high-quality studies on performing-enhancing drugs because of ethical and societal concerns, posing difficulties to the endocrinologists who encounter the complications of these drugs, according to a statement from The Endocrine Society.

Despite guidelines recommending screening for hypopituitarism in patients with traumatic brain injury, researchers found a low prevalence of growth hormone deficiency in this patient population.

Deficiencies in vitamin D are significantly more prevalent among patients with Rett syndrome than previously thought, according to findings from a report in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

Patients with hypothalamic-pituitary disorders appeared to be at increased risk for fibromyalgia-associated symptoms, according to recent study results.

The desmopressin stimulation test appears to be a reliable method for determining the pituitary effects of Cushing’s disease, according to researchers.

Children born to mothers who had severe, early gestational hypothyroxinemia are nearly four times more likely to have autism, according to researchers. Although their results do not demonstrate causality, researchers said they lend support to the connection between low thyroid function and a child’s developing brain.

Data from a 20-year retrospective observational study conducted by researchers in Denmark suggest a need for improved thyroid status awareness in patients who also have hypopituitarism to reduce cardiovascular risk factors.